A Bold Transit Remedy

It is an imaginative, daring plan distilled from a four-year continuing study of the transit problems of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, an urbanized swath of increasing congestion.

The program will test the will, determination and fiscal capacity of the three states to implement its wide-ranging features: suburban rail service improvements, rapid transit rail improvements and limited access highway building ... new express highways and bridges, almost double the state’s existing road system.

It is a plan based on genuine need, one subject to change and improvisation over a 20-year period, to meet population changes and other variables that could affect mass transit.

The problem, as always, is the monumental cost; but this is a factor that may in a few years be dictated by growing needs that will be generated by a steadily rising population. In 20 years the population in the tri-state region is expected to increase from 18 million to 24 million persons.

One of the features of the mass transit plan is to improve suburban rail service with the objective of establishing direct, no change lines from each suburban route to mid-Manhattan.

Of the three states, New Jersey would be called on to make the largest commitment for new express highways and bridges, projecting an expenditure of $7 billion. In addition, the state would have to lay out between $1.4 and $2.2 billion for rapid transit improvements and $280 million for improving suburban rail service.

The Tri-State Transportation Commission is an official planning agency created by the legislatures of the three states; it replaced a similar agency established by the governors in 1961. The group’s major task is to develop transportation and highway-use plans for 22 counties of New Jersey and New York and six planning regions in Connecticut.

Under the plan proposed by the agency, the entire region would be set up in an integrated, coordinated area linked by rail and highways.

Some of the recommendations made by the commission covers ground already laid out by Gov. Hughes in the program he released earlier this week to deal with the commuter crisis in New Jersey.

The governor’s plan projects an expenditure of $300 million over a 10-year period to halt the backslide of the financially ailing commuter rail operations.

The programs proposed by Gov. Hughes and the Tri-State Commission call for massive infusions of funds over 10 and 20-year periods to improve and coordinate highway and rail transportation networks in the metropolitan area.

There is always an understandable reluctance with public projects dealing with enormous outlays to draw back and procrastinate. This is a normal reaction, but it must be remembered that the plans advanced are for long-range periods and contemplate matching federal grants available under the Urban Mass Transit Act.

In a program of such broad magnitude there must be a total cost projection to firm up commitments by the states and the federal government. It is a program that will have a sensitive dependence among the three states. There must be a mutuality of purpose and determination to make this program effective.

Each state must of necessity design its program to meet its specific needs, but in doing so each must keep in mind the overall objective, the dovetailing of these facilities so there is a coordinated network of transit facilities.

In New Jersey, for example, Mr. Hughes is thinking along lines of establishing an administrative structure for the transit program that would be contained within the governmental system. He believes this is preferable to an independent authority: the responsibility would be maintained under the state’s administrative umbrella, the advantage being that it would be sensitively responsive to the government.

The two plans made available to New Jersey and the other states a flexible working formula upon which a coordinated attack can be made on mass transit ills that afflict the tri-state region. How far the states can go in realizing all, or a major part, of these programs will depend on their capacity to undertake them without delay. In the end, growing demands on overtaxed facilities may expedite decisions and action by the three states.